


Improving Lessons

by ariadnes_string



Category: Aubrey-Maturin Series - Patrick O'Brian
Genre: Kissing, Multi, Porn Battle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-30
Updated: 2013-01-30
Packaged: 2017-11-27 13:21:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/662458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariadnes_string/pseuds/ariadnes_string
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Surely it was not the thing, not the thing at all, for one man to kiss another man’s betrothed, no matter how particular a friend the first man was of the second.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Improving Lessons

**Author's Note:**

> This is a kind of coda for the last chapter of _H.M.S. Surprise_
> 
> For the prompts: teachings, sharing, comfort.

_“…he looks so low. Sophie, it would break your heart to see him. But you will be kind, I know.”_ (Patrick O’Brian, _H.M.S. Surprise_ )

“Good lord, Stephen, I didn’t hear you come up there,” said Jack, breaking away from Sophie with a start and flushing crimson. “You can be so damnably neat-footed when you choose.”

“Dear Stephen,” said Sophie, aware of the doctor’s sour expression before Jack was. “I am so sorry to pain you. For we do cause you pain, I know we do.”

It was true. It was Paradise indeed to have Sophie aboard the _Surprise_ , to be sailing home with marriage and good fortune in certain sight. Paradise for Jack to hold the hand of his beloved and to steal the occasional kiss. But it was a Paradise haunted by the spectre of Stephen’s grief. Jack felt it keenly, and Sophie, with her tender heart, perhaps more keenly still. Without saying so much aloud, they had decided that too open a display of their own happiness would be in effect to rub salt into the wound. 

And yet here they were, caught exchanging kisses over the breakfast dishes.

“Do forgive us, old Stephen,” Jack put in. “Though I know no man likes to be reminded of his own misery by seeing the joy of others.”

It had come out wrong, and Stephen’s face darkened further still. Jack spluttered to a halt. He really was stung to the quick by his friend’s distress, and heartily sorry his words had dug the grave deeper, so to speak.

“You mistake me, brother, Sophie dear,” said Stephen coldly. “I rejoice in your happiness. It only pains me to see an act so consistently ill-done.”

Jack could not make him out. “Act? We do no act. We were only—“ His handsome face grew perplexed. “Why, I’ve never heard there was right way of kissing and a wrong ‘un. Whatever can you mean? Sweetheart,” he turned to Sophie, “you don’t think we was doing it ill, do you?”

But Sophie kept her eyes fixed on the cabin floor. Jack met Stephen’s altogether too knowing gaze.

“It is as I feared, Jack,” said Stephen. “You know nothing of women. You treat ‘em all as if they lived south of Gibraltar, if you catch my drift. You come at ‘em broadsides, firing with all guns, when it should be as if you were in a low-bottomed sloop, navigating a shallow channel—or is that a high bottomed sloop. Damn me, I run aground on these Naval metaphors. It is so very hard to explain without demonstration. Tell me, my dear, would you mind very much if I—?“

Jack fairly gaped. Surely it was not the thing, not the thing at all, for one man to kiss another man’s betrothed, no matter how particular a friend the first man was of the second. Besides, what could Stephen have to teach him? Jack had always supposed himself to be far more experienced with the fairer sex than the doctor. 

But then, Jack reflected, Stephen was a deep old file, and might have stores of knowledge as yet unrevealed. And there was not a more honourable man alive, in Jack’s opinion. Perhaps he had better see what Stephen had to show; Lord knew Jack could not bear depriving Sophie of the highest standard in anything, including kissing.

“If you think that is best, old soul,” he ventured. “And if we really could bear correction. Sophie, sweetheart, should you mind terribly if--?

“Come, honey, you know I will not hurt you,” said Stephen gently.

Sophie looked up. Her cheeks had turned a remarkably charming shade of pink. “I shall not mind too terribly if you do not,” she said to Jack.

“I shall not,” said Jack. “He is a medical man after all.”

With that, he stepped aside and let Stephen make his approach. Which he did not like a Man-of-War or a frigate, or like any ship at all, but rather more like one of the tigers he had been so anxious to see in Bengal. Stephen placed one hand on Sophie’s waist, and the other on the beautiful curve of her chin. He tilted her face upward to meet his, and placed his lips very lightly on the corner or her mouth. Then, through some subtle process Jack could not entirely follow, he seemed to take entire possession of her lips, parting them as easily as kiss-my-hand. With interest, Jack noted that while Stephen was quite a bit shorter than he was, Sophie had come up on her tiptoes to meet the kiss, her hand pressing for balance on Stephen’s forearm.

He was pleasantly surprised to find himself not the least bit jealous. It was a pleasing sight, sure, the way strands of Sophie’s hair were beginning to escape their fastenings, and the fair skin above the neckline of her frock to colour. Even Stephen looked quite gallant as he gave his whole being to the task.

“There, Jack,” said Stephen after a bit, lowering Sophie carefully stand on her feet again. “You have observed my method? You understand the way of it now?”

Jack was not altogether sure he did. He felt he had perhaps got too absorbed in the rise and fall of Sophie’s bosom to take in the finer points of Stephen’s technique. But he nodded sagely as Stephen explained that the key was in the minute movements of the lips, the fine muscles of the tongue.

“Sophie,” said Stephen, “you are a wonderful creature, marvelous pliant, as sensitive as a flower. But for you, too, there are few matters—very minor matters, mind you—that could do with improvement. Perhaps you will do me the courtesy to attend whilst—“

And without warning he broke hard to larboard and pulled Jack into a kiss.

Warmth. The scratch of Stephen’s morning beard. The taste of coffee and the smell of ink. Jack was in uncharted waters. He had thought he knew Stephen as well as one man could know another. They had lived together, fought together, swum together. Jack had listened Stephen’s most hidden thoughts as he lay delirious on their voyage home. But he had not known this: what it was like to have Stephen’s tongue explore his mouth, the nip of Stephen’s teeth on his lower lip.

Stephen broke for breath, and Jack used the opportunity to adjust his Nankeen trousers.

“Now then, Sophie,” Stephen said, only a bit more hoarse than usual, “I would not advise attempting to put your arms around him—he is far too corpulent for that and bound to grow worse. Nor would I waste attention on his poor ears—he has lost most sensation there. But you might venture to untie his queue, joy, or tangle your fingers in his hair, like so. Do not be afraid to be rough with him—he is a sailor and quite used to such treatment.”

Jack bit back a hiss of pleasure as Stephen drew him hard into the clinch again, at even closer quarters than before. He heard Sophie make a small, indrawn _”Oh_. He could not con her meaning with any certainty, but she did not sound displeased. When Stephen finally released him, he looked into Sophie’s wide, gleaming eyes and saw that she, too, was having difficulty filling her lungs with air.

“And now,” said Stephen, evidently pleased with his lesson, “you two must try again. It is like music, you’ll find, nothing but constant application will bring you to the proper pitch. Go on now; don’t be shy, for all love.”

Jack put out his arms to her, though he did feel strangely shy. But Sophie came into them as swiftly as a bird. And while he laid his lips against hers with as much gentleness as he could muster, he found she pressed into to them with more ardor than was her wont, slipping her delicate, questing tongue between them. He fancied he could feel some trace of Stephen on her still, a faint smell, or taste. Or perhaps it was the mere knowledge of what they’d shared that quickened his blood, that forced him to withdraw more quickly than he’d purposed lest they come into territory not proper for unmarried persons. 

Jack and Sophie stood holding hands, grinning at each other like Boobies.

“Oh my dears, you do me such good,” said Stephen, coming up between them. All sourness had fled, and colour bloomed in his habitually sallow cheeks. “I am delighted. Such eager, apt pupils. I bless you.” He laid one hand on Jack’s shoulder and the other on Sophie’s head, drawing them closer to himself. “My melancholy has been quite exploded.”


End file.
